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Saturday, 30 June 2012

This morning's lucky dip challenge at Less is More at first seemed impossible to me - use the logo as inspiration - it's quite a complex thing but then when you look at the elements - flourishes, music, flowers, gems - it started to spark an idea. I needed to make an Anniversary card for my SIL and thought that flourishes were very anniversary like so I took that as my starting point.

The flourish frame was cut on my new toy - I finally caved and ordered a Silhoutte Cameo - and I have to say it may well be the best crafting decision I EVER made. I already have a cricut and there is just no comparison to the ease of use (if you're OK with a computer that is). The software is very intuitive and the machine itself is brilliant - quieter than the cricut too. The flourish was downloaded from the online library but it wasn't deep enough to fit my sentiment in, so I "subtracted" a bit in the middle to allow me to lower the bottom flourish and then drew an oblong back over and "welded" it back together to make the flourish wide enough. I then sized the whole image to 4" so it would fit across my card nicely (and unlike the cricut it comes out just as you expect it!). For my 2nd attempt at using the cameo - I'm personally pretty pleased with what I've accomplished (the first thing will be blogged later as that worked out fine too!)

I embossed my favourite anniversary sentiment from Waltzingmouse into the frame and mounted it over a stamped musical panel stamped in the new momento colour "peanut brittle" which I love the tone of. To finish I cut a couple of small hearts from kraft paper (PTI die part of the flip flop die set) and added a tiny pearl heart into each of those.

I have a mountain of cards to make for birthdays coming up and orders today along with a tiara for my friends impending wedding so I'd better go and get busy whilst keeping one eye on the tennis (come on Andy!) I'll be back just after midnight with our new challenge for St Lukes.

Has anyone else found that the spell checker in blogger isn't working? Nothing happens when I use it anymore. Any tips on how to sort it?

Wednesday, 27 June 2012

My friend just turned 40 and I needed to make a special birthday card for him. He loves cycling so I knew exactly what to make - I got this great bike embelishment a while ago and have been saving it for this very occassion.

I started with my new PTI zipper die which I extended to make a panel big enough to have my bike and sentiment on (tricky but doable) I stamped the sentiment "What goes UP and never comes DOWN?" onto the zipper and the matching "pull here" arrow in red to match the bike onto the zipper front. I cut a black mat slightly larger than the front and drew a soft line where I needed my other half of the sentiment to be revealed when the zipper is torn and I stamped and embossed in white "your age! Happy Birthday!" (See photo below - VERY poor quality as it was taken at the party on my mobile and I was a bit wobbly! I think you get the gist though)

To finish the card I added a red mat, a strip of silver sequin material embossed with my favourite masculine embossing folder which looks like garage flooring and a black chevron die cut. I made a 40 road sign (kanban stamp set) and covered it in glossy accents for shine and stuck this over the zipper end and mounted the bike as if it were riding along the zipper road...

I also made him a banner for the party on my cricut (the banner and lettters are from the cindy loo cartridge) cut from echo park rainbow papers and black for the letters which I highlighted with a white gel pen to give a stitched detail effect. Again - sorry for the crappy photo - we hung it over a window which meant getting the lighting right was impossible!

I had lots of requests for more bike cards recently and can't get hold of any more of these little bikes which is a real shame - if anyone sees them anywhere - do let me know!

I decided that the addition of white would make the card feel much more weddingy and I took inspiration from the frosty trees and the texture they give to the image to use a textured background. The bridge then made me thing of my lovely PTI die which has a sort of bridge shape. Those two together were my main elements for the card which came out like this:

I used a gorgeous spellbinders EF with really textured hearts on it as my background and matted it onto black so it had a really thin black border. I die cut the the scallops from grey card stock twice to make a border for the sentiment which is by Waltzingmouse. I embossed that in black for a glossy finish and tinted some large clear gems with a black copic marker to match and set those in the centres of each scallop.

I decided to decorate tthe inside to match (sorry about the poor photo, forgot to switch the daylight bulb on when I took the shot so the colours are off). I used a PTI stamp which matches the die using London Fog Momento ink to mirror the outside border and stamped another sentiment from the same Waltzingmouse set as the greeting.

Monday, 25 June 2012

No card tonight but a couple of photos of the torch relay as it ran past our offices about 6.30 pm this evening. I'm not sure who it is carrying it as I can't seem to find a list anywhere which matches the bearers numbers to their names! Looking at photos - she could be Chloe Rutkowski a local charity fundraiser - but I can't say for sure - she was number 131. (Edited - someone managed to find out the real name - she is Sophie Whittam, former figure skater turned figure skating fashion designer!) There was quite a crowd on the street and the police struggled to keep the road open enough for the large sponsors vehicles to get through but our car park is elevated from the street so we still got a decent view.

I think the crowd in town for the lighting of the cauldron was even bigger as Seb Coe did the last leg as Sheffield is his home town (sorry he was Seb here way before he was Lord so Seb he'll stay!)

Well it's my final day to guest over at Make My Monday - thanks so much for having me ladies. This week we are being inspired by all things Wimbledon and have a red, cream and green colour challenge for you and that's where the strawberries cream and grass come into it. Being a bit of a tennis fan I decided to take the theme a bit more literally and add Wimbledon (the championships start today btw) into my card inspiration.

I love this little guy from the Magnolia Winner Takes it All release (in fact it was my favourite Magnolia release so far so I have quite a few of them!) I coloured him in copics and then paper pieced his outfit and the ball. A little matting and layering, some craft candy dots and a nice strawberry coloured based card and he's ready for the opening rounds (although his outfit would be frowned up at Wimbledon as they like you to only wear white!)

Have fun with the theme, and watching the championships if you're that way inclined. It's the only sporting event I follow properly so I'll be glued to the little TV in my craft room for the next couple of weeks - maybe this year will be Andy Murrays? We can but live in hope.....

Sunday, 24 June 2012

That's the challenge this week at CASual Friday's http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cfc58.html to make a card mostly in pink as it's national pink day (yesterday I believe). Now pink is not my normal go to colour but I have just received a new set of stamps from skipping stone designs that was made for pink so here's what I created with it.

I punched a strip of pink dotty paper with a MS loop punch and then die cut a label shape from pink glitter paper to mount my image onto which I deliberated let hang off the card for added interest. I stamped the bra onto white card and coloured with copics and added a few pink gems to be the "button detail" on the bra. I finished by adding faux stitched detail around the label shape and two of the matching sentiments from the set in black. I love the humour of this set.

Saturday, 23 June 2012

This week's challenge at Less is More is right up my street - paper-piecing is probably my favourite technique after colouring. So as I had a little time this morning as I've pulled out of the fair I should have been doing for St Luke's due to the horrendous weather and the fact that my gazebo wouldn't stay up in it, I had time to play along first thing.

I used the fabulous "well read" stamp set from MFT and paper-pieced the image with a selection of papers from My Minds Eye "on the bright-side one" which is full of chevrons, spots, denims and wood grains - I love this paper! I used a few plain scraps too for flesh and cushions. Finished with one of the sentiments form the set (it has 7 reading related) and a few more chevrons for carpet. Simple but so effective.

I'm going on a Caribbean themed hen night tonight and I've made a little keepsake for everyone to wear (we're not doing the whole dressing up thing so I thought this was a nice tasteful and subtle thing for us all to wear) I haven't played with shrink plastic in ages but once I got the technique right - producing a whole row of "hula Anya's" (greeting farm) was lots of fun. I did each with different hair and flower colours.

Fingers crossed that the weather is bit drier this evening or we'll all be sporting a "just got out of the ocean look"!!!

Thursday, 21 June 2012

It's my blogging buddy and fellow St Luke's DT member Jenny's birthday today - hope you're having a lovely day Jenny despite the awful and very un-midsummer's-day-like weather! Obviously a birthday needs a birthday card but for some reason I really struggled to make a card for Jenny which is odd as we share the same taste in lots of stamp designers. However several attempts went in the recycling pile and I was about to give up and send something I'd already made until I happened upon this week's sketch at retro sketches and thought - donkey! (yes, I know, I'm weird!)

It's quite a complicated sketch, but all those oblongs really called out to me and this is what I came up with which I hope Jenny will like :-)

I started with the fabulous donkey from There She Goes (currently out of stock - sorry!) stamped on kraft, coloured with pencils and fussy cut. I also knew I wanted to use my new emoticon washi tape (hiding in the middle) and some cork for texture so decided on a blue and yellow colour theme. All the papers are from my scrap box so I'll be popping into the snippets playground this week. The sentiments are from the donkey set and the round one from craftwork cards (ready printed) and the die cut stars are MFT. Finished with some buttons and gems, an eyelet from my much underused crop-a-dile and a bit of gingham ribbon.

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

As we've been away for 3 days this weekend, I lost out on my normal crafting day this Saturday and thought I'd struggle to catch up on a lot of the challenges I wanted to play in, however it one of those fortunate coincidences that sometimes occur in crafting, I can combine some of the challenges I play in.

The flower is made up of two different sized floral stamps by stamps by Chloe and a matching leaf sprig - all glitter embossed on vellum and fussy cut. I dry embossed a strip of white card with a spellbinders folder and adhered it to a strip of white glitter card. The sentiment is by Waltzingmouse and stamped in silver with the addition of some tiny gems for extra shine and sparkle.

Monday, 18 June 2012

Well good morning all and welcome to a new week and with it a new Make My Monday challenge - my 3rd as a Guest DT member. Here in the UK, it's approaching midsummer with our longest day of daylight fast approaching - pity the weather didn't get the memo though as the rain feels much more autumnal! The girls have the theme this week as "a midsummer nights dream" to tie in with midsummer's night using the Shakespeare play of the same name with it's fairies and surreal scenes as inspiration - after a lot of head scratching - this is what I managed to come up with.

My starting point was the gorgeous topper sent to me by the lovely lady behind Cardmakers Delights as I thought the two fairies in the teacup were quite midsummer night's dreamy. I layered it onto a pink nestie lable, tied some vintage seam binding ribbon around it and added a couple of pearl pins. I mounted it onto a card covered with DP and added a dream themed sentiment and some sequin butterflies. I mounted the lable at an angle and added some diecut swirls and some paper roses. I don't tend naturally to this style - I love it but find it hard to do and am much better at CAS but this became my Sister-in-Law's birthday card and she loved it so I must try to do fussy more often!

I do hope you'll join in with this week's challenge - I think it's a great fun challenge to start off the week.

Sunday, 17 June 2012

With our long weekend away I had totally forgotten it was Blog Party day.... I was really inspired when I saw the inspiration challenge too, so despite the 450 mile round drive we've just got back from, I had to rush into the craft room and have a go.

This is not what I originally had in mind - my brain is a bit too frazzled from the drive and the party and I needed it to be simple so I took my inspiration from the colours, the panelling and the vases and this is what I came up with.

I stamped and embossed the greeting (compact sentiments) onto soft teal card and then over stamped the wood grain effect using the way out west background stamp with London Fog grey ink. I dry embossed a border to look like the panelling detail and emphasised it with a white gel pen. I created the vase using one of the teardrop shapes from the tiny trees set by cutting it out and cutting off the point. I stamped one of the branches from that set, added some orange flower brads and stuck the vase over the top.

This was a pretty simple card just using a couple of memory box dies, a stamped sentiment, silver ink and some stickles. I die cut the deer, which are normally in a row, 3 times and layered them up to add some dimension by making them look like chipboard. I covered them in stickles. I then cut a piece of card slightly smaller than my base card and die cut the top of it with the house and tree border die. Another layer of stickles for the hill line and a couple of fake hills for the deer to stand on and job done! Oh, and I finished with the sentiment (hero arts) stamped in silver (well it wouldn't show in white!)

Right, I need to go and put together the birthday banner I just cut on my cricut ready for this weekends' party....

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Just a quick reminder that if you haven't already linked up, you still have a few days left to trawl through your blogs and find your FIRST MASCULINE CARD and link it up to the Flashback Friday Challenge that I'm Guest Hosting this month.

I should have been doing a whole lot of things to prepare for going away at the weekend for our friends 40th (not to mention starting to bake 72 cupcakes...) but after our rubbish weekend and as my hubby went out I decided I needed a bit of me time, and that always involves a little paper and scissors action! So I looked around at a few challenges and decided to combine a few to create this fun card:

Firstly, I had yet to make a card for this week's CASual Friday challenge which is all about polka dots, and both TSG and crazy for challenges were looking for circles which I thought would go with the polka dot theme and as I decided on my TSG camera with dots as my main image I thought it was prime for paper-piecing which is this week's challenge at do you stack up.

I stamped the camera onto some grey pearl card and then again onto blue. I cut the blue portion out, coloured the dots with a white gel pen and glaze and paper-pieced them onto the base image. I stamped the image onto colouring card and coloured the lens with copics, glazed the centre and pieced it on top. I pieced in the little hearts and button details. I cut some circles from polka dotted DP with a nestie and punched some little grey pieces to overlap and finished with a white embossed sentiment onto a black ribbon. The stamps are both from the great new TSG set - Oh Snap

Monday, 11 June 2012

Good Morning and welcome to another Monday - now Monday's are not normally my favourite day of the week, but throughout June, they are a little more exciting that normal, as I get to be a guest DT member over at Make My Mondays http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/ and this week the challenge is simple and timely - make a father's day card ahead of this Sunday's day to celebrate all things fatherly....

I used one of my favourite masculine images from Elzybels - who can't relate to this beary image of a Dad "resting his eyes" half way through the papers following Sunday lunch? I paper pieced the arm chair and then cut a bear from white smooth cardstock and used a pointalist colouring technique with copics to give some furry definition. I pieced the newspaper on top and although it doesn't show too clearly it is creased and popped up with silicon for added dimension. I mounted him in a double cut nestie circle on top of a embossed background. The sentiment is from Stampin Up.

I am also going to enter this into the following father's day / masculine challenges:

Sunday, 10 June 2012

I didn't get time to play yesterday as I was at St Luke's "Summer" Fair (I use quotation marks as summer was very far from Sheffield yesterday - we couldn't get the gazebo up for the strong winds and it was a pretty disappointing day all round.

We've had rubbish weather again tonight and we've just got soaked to our pants while we tried to unblock the drains before the kitchen flooded - it's been one of those weekends all round :(

Anyhow, I managed 10 minutes to make a quick thank you card for my friend who sat for 6 hours in the cold and rain with me at the fair and I used the LIM challenge to do it with.

I don't know who made the set of stamps I used but there are a variety of lovely flourish designs in it - I chose a "straight" one to create a frame for my simply thanks greeting which is by Waltzingmouse. I stamped it in pink and added a little stickles to the dots in the design. Very quick and simple but I think it speaks for itself.

I won't get much time for crafting this week but I have a few projects to share while I'm busy preparing for one of our best friend's 40th Birthday party this weekend. We are crossing everything that the long range forecast of an even worse weekend next weekend is very very wrong........

See, it's definitely NOT flip flop weather in the UK today but these flip flops made with my new PTI die really make me happy despite the rain. The border die is cut from a wave patterned sheet of DP using the tessatina die from memory box and the sentiment is Kraftin Kimmie.

Keep your fingers crossed for a drier day tomorrow as I'm doing the Summer Fair for St Luke's and I'm outside :(

Thursday, 7 June 2012

Something a little different from me today - not a card - but a set of napkins! I'd been wanting to have another go at stamping on material and when I saw this cute cutlery stamp it just called out to me (well I am Sheffield born and bred so cutlery is in my genes as my Grandfather was a little mester)

I simply stamped the image in the corner of 4 linnen napkins and added a "bon appetit" sentiment to the name plate and heat sealed it with an iron and greaseproof paper so the napkins are now washable at 30 degrees. I've made them into a a little gift set and they will be going in my Folksy store. I have plans to make more with bride and groom on as I think they'd make nice wedding gifts too.

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

I had a couple of disasterous attempts at Mynnette's Technique Tuesday technique last month which was velveteen stamping but didn't think I'd have anything to share as they just didn't work so I gave up as I was close to the deadline. http://mynnettestechniquetuesday.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/velveteen-stamping.html However, the deadline has been extended, and following some further helpful instructions for the stupid (that's me btw!) I realised where I went wrong (thanks Mynnette) so I finally have something that worked!

It was a totally new technique to me, and providing you read the instructions properly and use the right ink (doh!) then it works perfectly so do check out the technique if its new to you too and give it a go.

I used my favourite Hero Arts Set in the foreground and an Elzybels leaf in the background which you can see most clearly in the flower head (the velveteen technique in action!) I finished with an embossed white sentiment in a label aperture on the green base card.

Tuesday, 5 June 2012

I needed an Anniversary card this week for some friends and thought that a combination of a couple of challenges would be ideal for it - CASual Friday's "bling" and Annabelle Stamps "paper piercing".

I started with an oval nestie and stamped a cake image onto it in pink, over stamped a swag design in darker pink and added bling to each swag. Next I drew a swirl design onto grey card and pierced it before rubbing out my pencil lines. I mounted it onto pink card stock so that it showed through the pierced holes and finished with a sentiment on a tiny lable.

Monday, 4 June 2012

As I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner for April over at Make My Monday I get the opportunity this month to play along in all their challenges as a Guest Designer - and I'm really thrilled to be part of the team :-D

The first challenge this month is PEARL BIRTHDAY so a nice easy and open theme - any type of Birthday card as long as it features pearls. Here's my sample:

I decided to go quite classical using a cameo set from Waltzingmouse stamps - I embossed the frame with a white pearl powder and fussy cut it out adding a liquid pearl drop at the base of each shape to bling up the pearl element. I stamped a simple cameo from the set and cut with a small nestie. The sentiment is also Waltzingmouse and I forced them into a curve on my acrylic block before stamping so that they fit the frame. I die cut a couple of swirls from the same pink card and attached them behind some ribbon with a pearl slider and finished with a few more pearls to the swirls.

Go and check out what goodies the regular Make My Monday Design Team have to share with you all this morning and do play along with the challenge (well it is a bank holiday so an extra day to play for all of us!) http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Sunday, 3 June 2012

The Jubilee may be everywhere this weekend, but it's not all about the Queen's 60th - yesterday, Waltzingmouse launched their updated sketch challenge website with their 100th sketch - so that's a kind of Centenary right? Here's the sketch:

I have a card commission to make "something nice" for a lady in her 70's so I decided to use the sketch as a springboard for inspiration and this is what I came up with:

I used several different co-ordinating papers from the First Edition New Leaf paperpad. I used the lace stamp from the French Country set over one of the sheets and used two different sentiment sets to form the Happy Birthday. The border die is PTI, the leaf is Cheery Lyn and the frame is a Spellbinders label. The flower I created myself using two different sized scalloped punches, water and scrunching (as per my earlier tutorial - see the link at the top of the page)

For my first card I got out my papermania portobello road papers and made 3 flowers in red, white and blue using them and a scalloped circle punch. I printed the sentiment about being a Queen for a day and cut it with a nestie and mounted it onto more the red paper from the set. I deliberated hung it off the card and trimmed it back. I stamped a crown by Dimension 4th stamps, coloured and glittered it and added some gems. To assemble I added some union ribbon (papermania), a marianne D die cut swirl and a stamp from a papermania set (could have done with a better ink match to the printed sentiment though!)

For my second card, I went cute but still CAS. The image is a Pollycrafts digi, coloured with copics and fussy cut. The sentiment is computer generated again and mounted ribbon style onto some blue card from my snippets drawer.

My crafting time this morning started later than normal as the weather has gone cold so the cat was seeking warmth, and it seems I was it! It's very hard to craft one handed ;-) She was definitely interested by what was on my laptop today too....

Friday, 1 June 2012

Well, it's the 1st of the month which means time for a new challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge and I hope you will all be much happier with this month's theme of "something furry" than you were with our one layer challenge last month which seemed to send most of you running for the hills with your decorative papers clutched firmly to your chest..........

This challenge is super easy - you can make a card for anyone, on any theme, as long as it features something furry - cat, dog, teddy bear or even a furry monster! For my inspiration card I opted to go for the super cute retro Chester the monkey digi stamp from Pollycrafts (if you like him, be sure to nip over to the shop this week as sadly, it's closing it's doors for ever on the 8th June :-( so if you want to get any of the great images you've only got a week to buy them before they disappear http://pollycraft.co.uk/shop/page/1?shop_param= You can currently get a fab closing down offer of 100 images for less than a tenner which is kind of a no brainer in my book.....

Speaking of Waltzingmouse - they are our FABULOUS sponsor again this month so if you enter our challenge, you can win this gorgeous stamp set. If you've not tried them before you'll be stunned at the quality of their clear polymer stamps - they are so much better than many clear brands out there - there's no "squish" to them and the results are perfect every stamp!So enter your furry creation into our challenge by noon on 30 June and you could win this gorgeous set of wonderful and very useful background stamps:

I'm entering this card into a few other challenges - mostly masculine ones to match the theme as there are a few of those around at the moment with father's day coming up fast:

About Me

Hi - I'm Tara a food and craft obsessive who like a magpie is drawn to all things that sparkle! I am now living my crafting dream and own my own online craft supply store Make the Day Special Stamp Store which specialises in importing hard to source US craft brands.